Create visuals and infographics
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Learning Objectives
- 1Match each common chart type to the kind of data it best displays
- 2Add a clear title, axis labels, and units to every chart
- 3Write a caption that tells the reader what the visual shows and why it matters
- 4Cite the source of any data, photograph, or map used in the report
Mini Lesson
Step 6 of the capstone is the visual layer. A strong report does not just tell readers — it shows them. The right chart, map, or photograph can make a complicated argument click in a single glance, but only if you pick the right kind of visual and design it carefully.
Pick the right visual for the data
- Bar chart — comparing amounts across categories (population of five cities, number of votes per party).
- Line chart — change over time (a country's GDP from 1900 to 2000, a population graph by decade).
- Pie chart — parts of a single whole (share of a budget spent on each ministry).
- Map — geographic patterns (battle sites, migration routes, election results by region).
- Timeline — events in chronological order (covered fully in Lesson 35).
- Photograph — primary visual evidence (a leader at a key moment, an artifact, a place).
- Infographic — combines text and images to explain a process or set of facts in one figure.
Every visual needs five things
- A clear title that names what the visual shows.
- Labeled axes (for bar and line charts) — including units like "millions of people" or "year".
- A legend if more than one series of data is shown.
- A caption — one or two sentences below the visual that explain what to look at and why it matters.
- A source line — where the data came from, with citation.
What makes an infographic
An infographic is a single image that combines text, numbers, and small visuals to explain something at a glance. The five steps of the water cycle drawn around arrows, or a stack of icons showing the number of soldiers each country sent in WW1, are infographics. They work because the eye reads the layout first and the words second — a good infographic guides the viewer in a clear order.
Common mistakes
Pie charts with twelve slices are unreadable — use a bar chart instead. Line charts with no axis labels mean nothing — always include them. Maps without a scale and a legend confuse the reader. Photographs without captions look decorative rather than evidential. And every visual, like every quote, needs a citation — readers must be able to track the data back to its source.
You want to show how the population of London grew every decade from 1800 to 1900. Which visual is BEST?
Change over time is the textbook job of a line chart — the slope tells the story. A bar chart could work but is clunky for ten time points; a pie chart would be wrong (no whole to divide).
Tip: if you can read your chart in black and white, it will work for everyone, including readers who are color-blind. Use patterns or labels in addition to color, not color alone.
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